Q: You inherited a country deeply in recession, with high inflation and high interest rates, when you became governor of the National Bank of Moldova [NBM] in November 2009. You started implementing an inflation-targeting regime in 2010. How would you characterise the economy now?
A: Our medium- to long-term target is 5% inflation with a potential deviation of 1.5% – before 2009 we permanently had double-digit inflation. Since the start of our inflation-targeting regime we managed to lower our inflation rate to single digits for the first time in 23 years, and we have kept it at this level for four consecutive years. More than that, in the past two years, at the end of each month, we were within the targeted band. This is a pretty good result for a young national bank, but a prudent fiscal policy implemented by the government also helped.
